USA - Florida. Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. gave the death penalty to Dwayne Fitzgerald White

Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. this morning gave the death penalty to Dwayne Fitzgerald White. White, 44, Black, was convicted in October of 1st-degree murder by a Seminole County jury of murdering his estranged wife, Sarah Rucker, 42, on Aug. 29, 2011, by slashing her throat. On October 28, 2014 (see) the same jury voted 8 to 4, recommending that he be put to death. White's sentence comes less than 2 weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up a challenge to Florida's death penalty from convicted killer Timothy Lee Hurst. He was found guilty of murdering a co-worker at a Pensacola Popeye's fried chicken stand in 1998. His lawyers contend that Florida is violating the rights of murderers by allowing judges to impose the death penalty without a unanimous vote for the same sentence by juries. In Hurst's case, the vote was 7 to 5. This morning one of White's attorneys, Jeff Dowdy, chief of operations for the Office of Public Defender in Sanford, asked Lester to consider the Supreme Court's pending decision in the Hurst case.